Monarch’s banquet, they await the command of “Fall to and help yourselves!” They respond to that compassionate, illustrious, and universal mercy with comprehensive, exalted, and orderly worship. Do those people who fail to participate in such elevated worship and noble bounties deserve to be called human beings?
S e c o n d P o i n t
One of the many instances of wisdom in the fast of the blessed month of Ramadan with respect to thankfulness for God Almighty’s bounties is as follows:
As is stated in the First Word, a price is required for the foods a tray-bearer brings from the royal kitchen. But to look on those priceless bounties as valueless while tipping the tray-bearer, and not to recognize the one who bestowed them is the greatest foolishness.
God Almighty has spread innumerable sorts of bounties over the face of the earth for mankind, in return for which He wishes thanks, as the price of those bounties. The apparent causes and holders of the bounties resemble tray-bearers. We pay a certain price to them and are indebted to them, and even though they do not merit it are over-respectful and grateful to them. Whereas the True Bestower of Bounties is infinitely more deserving of thanks than those causes which are merely the means of the bounty. To thank Him, then, is to recognize that the bounties come directly from Him; it is to appreciate their worth and to perceive one’s own need for them.
Fasting in Ramadan, then, is the key to true, sincere, extensive, and universal thankfulness. For at other times of the year, most people whose circumstances are not difficult do not realize the value of many bounties since they do not experience real hunger. If their stomachs are full and especially if they are rich, they do not understand the degree of bounty present in a piece of dry bread. But when it is time to break the fast, the sense of taste testifies that the dry bread is a precious divine bounty in the eyes of a believer. During Ramadan, everyone from the monarch to the destitute manifests a sort of gratitude through understanding the value of those bounties.
Furthermore, since eating is prohibited during the day, they say: “Those bounties do not belong to me. I am not free to eat them, for they belong to someone else and are his gift. I await his command.” They recognize the bounty to be bounty and so give thanks. Thus, fasting in this way is in many respects a key to gratitude; gratitude being man’s fundamental duty.
T h i r d P o i n t
One of the many instances of wisdom in fasting from the point of view of man’s social life is as follows: